“Life is all blank pages to be written on.”

I have come across the most exciting discovery since the release of Extras. They are turning one of my favorite books into a movie. Soon. As in Fall 2008. I have always been disappointed with books-turned-movies in the past (with the ONLY exceptions being The Notebook and the most recent The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and research on imdb.com shows that I won’t be disappointed with this. The cast is very close to how I pictured them in my mind, with one cast member being my mental ideal: Paul Bettany (A Knight’s Tale, Wimbleton, The DaVinci Code) as Dustfinger, the guarded, mysterious character risen from a book. The cast is almost completely british, which fits.

But lets move on. The books (Inkheart and Inkspell) are a fairytale ride through which you lose all definitions of make-believe and reality, and just begin to accept things. The series centers around the idea that stories are real, and books are only a glimpse into those worlds. A main feature is also that certain people have the gift of being able to bring characters, books, “to life”. That is, from their world to ours. The catch is that it has to be replaced. So the trade is person-for-person, object-for-object, but not necessarily of equal value. This becomes a problem when Mo Folchart, a silvertongue (a person with the reading gift), reads out the villains of his favorite book Inkspell, and at the same time, reads in his wife. He refuses to ever read aloud again, and rasies his daughter, Meggie, himself. She inherits her father’s love of books, and doesnt much notice that he never read her to sleep, but instead, let her read herself. But unexpectedly, one of the characters comes back, seeking help.

This is definitely a book worthy of book lovers, with truths and consequences, susperstitions and instructions for care surrounding books woven in between the story and the pages themselves. It awakes in every person the childlike desire to have their favorite story come alive.